


Wild Thing

by NervousOtaku



Series: Writer's Block Short Stories And Plot Bunny Dump [20]
Category: Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: Fishing, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29837967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousOtaku/pseuds/NervousOtaku
Summary: Tyr has a discussion with the Wolf-Father.
Series: Writer's Block Short Stories And Plot Bunny Dump [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1472354
Kudos: 1





	Wild Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Wow this thing is old. I wrote it... goodness, I don't even remember when any more. I pulled the papers out of an old folder held together with duct tape and copied everything pretty much word for word. I think it was for some school-assigned writing prompt.

Tyr was quiet, watching as Loki slipped out of Asgard and into the wilds beyond. He waited a moment, two, three, then rose and followed the man. He was a warrior, not a hunter, but it wasn't like Loki was trying to hide himself.

He followed the man through the trees, hanging back far enough that he felt hidden. Knowing Loki, he was probably well aware of Tyr's presence. But Loki was unpredictable and of debatable sanity. So Tyr hung back, even as he followed the man.

He felt... moderately surprised when Loki stopped at a stream. But at the same time, being truly surprised made him feel dim and slow.

As the man picked out a reed from the muddy bed and tied a strand of his unruly hair to it, Tyr emerged from the shadows. “Does Sigyn not feed you, Laufeyson?” he called.

The man's sharp eyes flicked to him with a grin. “I assure you my wife sates me perfectly, without ever entering the kitchen.”

Tyr scoffed, rolling his eyes at the vulgar suggestion. He moved to sit next to Loki as the man slipped his feet in the stream and began tying a coin to the strand of hair. For a while, they were silent.

He had asked if Sigyn didn't feed Loki, and the other gods often mocked him for his appetite. Loki could eat as much as Thor despite being only half the size of most those in Asgard. They called him greedy and a glutton. But Loki was fire. Tyr thought of the small, warm blazes in fireplaces and hearths, and how much it took to keep those burning. Honestly, it only made sense that Loki was always so hungry.

Crossing his legs, Tyr turned so he could better examine Loki.

“Something the matter?” the man hummed as soon as he did.

“Nothing.” he dismissed.

Loki's hair was red at the moment. Had been for a while now. The same hue as Thor's. Others said that he was attempting to mock the Odinson. Tyr got the feeling Loki was trying to curry favor. The man had been following after Thor for a while now, accompanying him on various journeys.

His hair was red, but other than that, it was the same as usual. Long, wild, unruly. He was clean-shaven at the moment, and it made his face sharper, more vulpine. He was as small and lanky as ever, vaguely skeletal and honestly somewhat delicate.

But what stood out most to Tyr was the scars.

Loki was small. In comparison to most who lived in Asgard, he was honestly quite pathetic in terms of strength. And so when he got into trouble, the kind his silver tongue couldn't talk him out of, it was guaranteed he would come away injured. There was the jagged marks on his lips, from Brokk sewing them shut. His back bore several layers of scars, inflicted by whips and claws. A messy one on his chest, supposedly from when he wrestled with Angrboda. An ugly one on his throat from when he had fought Heimdall over Brísingamen. Far from strong, and too scarred to be mistaken for such.

And yet despite all that, the children that bore Loki's parentage were always a sight to behold. Mighty and powerful, enough to make gods tremble.

Without thinking about it, Tyr rubbed at the stump where his hand had once been.

“Do you want compensation?”

Blinking, he looked at Loki in confusion.

The man smiled, showing off sharp teeth. Despite the grin, Tyr could see some apprehension.

“No. I agreed to it. The fault does not lie with you.” he said.

Loki hummed, moving the reed in his hands back and forth. “I may not have put your hand in his mouth, or closed his jaws around it, but Fenrir is mine. Some might say the blame is rightfully mine as well.”

Tyr was silent, watching the glint of the coin Loki was using for bait.

“What are you?”

There was a stretch of silence before Loki looked at him with his head hung to the side, nose crinkled in confusion.

“I know you are a jotun. You're the son of Farbauti, lightning, and Laufey, the pine tree. You are fire. I address you as a man. But you have borne more children than most women ever do, something no man can ever accomplish. You are more than a man.” Tyr explained.

Loki blinked, then hummed, twirling the reed back and forth in his hands. “Does it matter?”

Now it was Tyr's turn to be confused, blinking several times.

Grinning, Loki explained, “I am here. I am alive. What else is needed?”

“... I suppose that is a point to make.” he nodded back.

Before either of them could continue speaking, Loki's reed bent. As Tyr watched, Loki yanked, falling backwards into the dirt and kicking his bare feet up. The man crowed triumphantly, even as Tyr raised an eyebrow at the rather small fish chewing stubbornly on the coin.

“Surely that's not all you intend to catch.” he remarked.

“You wound me, Tyr!” Loki gasped, catching the fish in his hands and twisting it's head off. “This couldn't feed a cat!”

He opened his mouth to ask what Loki intended, but closed it when he saw the man replacing the coin with the fish's head. The man stood, reed over his shoulder so the fish-head bobbed in mockery of a traveler's pack.

“Bait for better catches, then?”

Loki grinned at his words and pointed upstream. “Did you know, Tyr, that a nokken lives over that-a-way?”

Aah. More mischief, then.

Rolling his eyes, Tyr got to his feet. “Try not to sleep with the fishes, Laufeyson.”

Loki threw back his head and laughed, loud and wild.

Tyr couldn't help but grin back, waving as he turned towards Asgard.

The small jotun had never really concerned him before. Loki was just sort of there. But then Odin had come to him and Thor, ordering them to Jotunheim's wilds to find Loki's wayward children. Then Tyr had met and grown fond of the wolf, Fenrir. He missed tussling with the wolf, had felt guilty about binding him even as he put his hand to those fangs.

Odin had forbidden him from going to see Fenrir. The wolf was to stay bound until the end of time, the Allfather decreed, and no one was willing to risk Tyr's sympathy for his friend undoing Glepnir.

Perhaps that was it, Tyr mused as he approached Asgard's gates. His longing for his wolffish friend had led him to the source. The man who had birthed Fenrir, the Wolf-Father.

As he came to his house, a thought wandered lazily across his mind. He considered it. Any other would be ashamed or horrified.

But Tyr could feel only curiosity and a twinge of desire as he considered the fact that Loki wasn't shy about spending the night in another's bed.


End file.
